Takuma Sato will drive a Lotus-branded IndyCar in certain rounds of this year’s IndyCar championship.

The car will be run by KV Racing and is set for its first outing at St Petersburg in Florida in two weeks’ time. The series holds its first round at a new street circuit in Sao Paolo tomorrow.

According to Lotus the car will be entered as a “Lotus-Cosworth”. At present Honda are the exclusive supplier of engines to the IndyCar championship. Every one of Sato’s 90 starts came at the wheel of a Honda-powered car.

This is fantastic news for everyone. It is exiting for me to be a Lotus driver and I?óÔé¼Ôäóm really looking forward to great success with this new project.Takuma Sato

Group Lotus CEO Dany Bahar said:

Racing has always defined Lotus and on many occasions in motorsports history Lotus?óÔé¼Ôäó numerous innovations have re-defined racing. It?óÔé¼Ôäós only fitting that as the Lotus Racing name re-enters Formula 1, we will also race and innovate again in IndyCar. The Lotus name will, once again compete in the top two open-wheel racing series for the passion and enthusiasm of car fans around the globe.

That’s a mistake for Lotus. IndyCar is a dying series that’s only kept afloat by the Indianapolis 500. Speaking of which, anyone else think it’s fishy that they have the season opener in Sao Paulo at a location other than Interlagos?

what do you think it will be better, to take the lotus name to nascar. I don’t think the indy car series is dying, they are just suffering because of a war. there is room in the us for both, but nascar it’s doing things the right way, and that’s key.
i hope they copy here in f1. Racing made for men, by men.

Haha yeah, I didn’t think you could get a stupider name than BMW Sauber Ferrari but kudos to Lotus Cosworth Honda, they’ve managed it. Not only are they named after a brand that doesn’t produce the cars but they also have a brand that doesn’t produce the engine. Madness!